The Gift (The Twilight Zone)

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The Twilight Zone original series Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1961 – Summer 1962 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: Two The Arrival The Shelter The Passersby A Game of Pool The Mirror The Grave It's a Good Life Deaths-Head Revisited The Midnight Sun Still Valley The Jungle Once Upon a Time Five Characters in Search of an Exit A Quality of Mercy Nothing in the Dark One More Pallbearer Dead Man's Shoes The Hunt Showdown With Rance McGrew Kick the Can A Piano in the House The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank To Serve Man The Fugitive Little Girl Lost Person or Persons Unknown The Little People Four O'Clock Hocus-Pocus and Frisby The Trade-Ins The Gift The Dummy Young Man's Fancy I Sing the Body Electric Cavender Is Coming The Changing of the Guard

“The Gift” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 97
Season: 3
Original air date: April 27, 1962
Writer: Rod Serling, based on his original script "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air" (not the first-season episode of the same name)
Director: Allen H. Miner
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director of photography: George T. Clemens
Music: Laurindo Almeida

[edit] Cast

Williams: Geoffrey Horne
Doctor: Nico Minardos
Pedro: Edmund Vargas
Manuelo: Cliff Osmond
Officer: Paul Mazursky
Guitarist: Vladimir Sokoloff
Rudolpho: Vito Scotti
Woman #1: Carmen D'Antonio
Sanchez: Henry Corden
Woman #2: Lea Marmer
Man #1: Joe Perry
Man #2: David Fresco

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A humanoid alien crash-lands outside a mountain village just across the Texas-Mexico border. He accidentally kills a police officer and is wounded by another. When he reaches a village bar, he collapses. A sympathetic doctor operates on him, removing two bullets from his chest. The alien (who refers to himself as "Mr. Williams") becomes friends with Pedro, an orphan whose job is to clean the bar. Pedro receives a gift from Williams, who tells Pedro that he will explain it later. Meanwhile, the bartender notifies the army about Williams' location. Williams attempts to escape, but soldiers and villagers corner him. He tells Pedro to show the gift, but it is taken from him and set on fire, and Williams is shot and killed. The doctor picks up the remains of the gift from the fire. He reads it aloud: "Greetings to the people of Earth. We come...in peace. We bring you this gift. The following chemical formula is...a vaccine against all forms of cancer..." The rest is burned away.